Can't Believe It's Definitely Treason War Burst: S3

[18:01:41] * Oxford changes topic to 'Orders: Advance-to-contact along southerly route. Heavy resistance expected. Godspeed.'
[18:04:27] <@Oxford> The tanks crest the hill at full speed, coming into view one after another. A pair on either side stop just down from the ridge to sweep the area below with their guns, while the rest charge down the hill towards the windmill.
[18:09:15] <@Oxford> The vehicles have a single turretted gun, small in size, and a machine gun mounted axially. Each tank has the crest of the Imperial Army of Albaea emblazoned on the turret, and the tank commanders are riding unbuttoned, with their heads and shoulders protruding from the top hatch.
[18:11:26] <Henriette> That many? Henriette hesitates for a moment, color fading to monochrome around the edges before she steels herself for potential combat against Albaeans, her people. Strong and vibrant, she holds her head high and pulls her coat tight around her.
[18:13:15] <@Oxford> Henriette recognizes them as CT-1 'Rapiers', Albaea's newest model of cavalry tank. Behind the column, three half-tracks with light anti-aircraft guns mounted on their backs follow the unit, their quad-mounted cannons pointed toward the sky.
[18:33:18] <Lily_Blevins> Lily grabs her Nov pendant and transforms into a FAIRY.  "Naida.  We can stop them without blowing a single one up, if we're good!"
[18:33:40] <@Oxford> There are twelve tanks in all, plus the three half-tracks. While this is only a small force, if it gets behind into the Novgoraadi supply areas or to a position where it can fire on the main river crossing, it could delay the Novgoraadi advance long enough for the Albaean Army to reestablish their defensive line.
[18:34:58] <Naida> Naida's bioorganic cloak suddenly seems to chomp down on her face as it fully envelops her with a mask. Several more bioluminescent growths seem to mimic multiple pairs of eyes. "Rust or tangle first?"
[18:36:01] <Lily_Blevins> "What happens when you leave a machine out in the wild for a few years?"  She smirks.
[18:42:36] * Oxford changes topic to 'Pool - Forest (Henriette, Naida, Lily) - Windmill - Hill (10xCT-1s) - Ridge (2xCT-1s, 3xTTT/aa)'
[18:42:37] <Naida> In an effort to avoid focusing on decaying the people themselves, Naida pushes aside her sylvan love to think of the smell of metal and that lovely smell of industrial waste.
[18:44:03] <Lily_Blevins> Lily focuses on the plants and the dirt.  Take the metals back to the soil, to fertilize it.  Living things aren't minerals, they will die eventually, but it's not their time yet to join the soil!
[18:59:40] <Lily_Blevins> The sun intensifies, and the plants on the ground visibly quiver before shooting up underneath the tanks.  Large brambles and vines, growing larger and wider as they move, wrap around all the tanks, first strangleholding them to the ground, then choking their treads with foliage and flowers, and then finally the roots uproot themselves, relocating as to make the ground soft enough to
[18:59:40] <Lily_Blevins> give some of the way under the tanks, burying half of them.  An entire orchard of colorful flowers and fruit-bearing trees sprout all over the hill, obscuring the vision of the CT-1s as they grow wild and huger than any of those variety the soldiers have ever seen.  Lilies with blossoms bigger than the soldiers heads sprout, and apples the size of cannonballs hang over their heads.
[19:02:40] <Naida> Gears grind to a screeching halt, fuel degrades, guns rust, and at least one poor bastard's flask becomes a container for a foul liquid.
[19:06:11] <@Oxford> The tanks on the ridge are completely immobilized. As the vines wrap tighter and spots of rust burst through peeling green paint, the tank-commanders are forced to close their hatches lest the vines reach inside the turrets.
[19:06:52] <Lily_Blevins> "Should we just wait them out?"
[19:09:17] <Henriette> Henriette hangs back, watching carefully, her fingers rubbing her pendant impatiently. There's a part of her that wants them to try and break loose. What was that saying she used to hear Albaean soldiers say? "Come on, then. Make my day, cheries," she mutters.
[19:09:58] <Henriette> "Shall I assist?" she says to Lily.
[19:10:06] <Lily_Blevins> "Yep!"
[19:14:31] <Henriette> And just like that, it's as if there's another sun rising from the landscape, incandescent and blindingly bright. The plants, guided by their biological instincts and spurred by magical growth, twitch their tips towards Henriette wantingly. The light begins to fade, shrinking into a tight knife in Henriette's hand. Whipping her arm up, the light cuts clear across the tanks, lancing
[19:14:31] <Henriette> through their treads while avoiding the cockpits.
[19:23:12] <Henriette> After the laser cuts through, a rippling light surges from the bleeding crack in the ground, causing further damage. Like in Bloodborne or FFX or Evangelion or whatever.
[19:25:52] <@Oxford> Most of the tanks on the hill are smoking badly, their crews struggling to put out fires and prevent further damage to engines and internals. Only one is able to return fire, launching a shell at Henriette with a dull thunk.
[19:26:26] <Lily_Blevins> Lily moves in the way to take it!
[19:28:07] <Henriette> As the light knife retracts, it defuses into a brilliant cloud of light around Henriette, like hazy clouds forming a halo around an afternoon sun. There's a bit of a manic sharpness to her smile.
[19:28:33] <Lily_Blevins> She takes the hit, a barrier of pure sunlight neutering the blow
[19:29:45] <@Oxford> The 40mm projectile bursts into a cloud of shrapnel on impact, and most of the shards are blown out and away by the force of Lily's barrier. A few make it through, slashing her in the side and upper arm.
[19:30:12] <Lily_Blevins> "This is nothing!"
[19:35:21] <@Oxford> From the ridge, the two tanks that stayed back open fire with their machine-guns. Lily dodges through the barrage as she speaks, bullets disappearing with a flash of light as they reach her barrier. Naida jukes out of the way of most of the swarm, but a stray round skips off her foot, leaving a stinging welt that darkens immediately.
[19:45:12] <@Oxford> The tanks are designed for ground combat, and their armaments either too weak or too unweildy to be effective against air targets. The half-tracks, on the other hand, are specifically there to provide air defense, and their quad-linked 23mm cannons send a hail of explosive shells streaming toward the three girls.
[19:46:29] <Lily_Blevins> A heat mirage from the ambient sunlight causes the gunner going for Lily to go far off course.
[19:48:38] <@Oxford> The others are not as lucky. As Henriette and Naida dodge through the hail of shells, the timed fuses ignite, leaving black clouds of flak scattered throughout the air. Both girls are rocked by the series of explosions, emerging with burns and cuts covering their bodies.
[19:49:49] <Henriette> Henriette glances down at her arms and legs. "Are we still trying not to hurt them? I do not believe we are scaring them away." She flares the light around her as her stare returns to the tanks.
[19:51:39] <Lily_Blevins> "We'll destroy the tanks so they can't fight back, then let them retreat."
[19:52:20] <Lily_Blevins> "C'mon Naida."  She grabs Naida, and Lily dashes forward, covering Naida in sparkly light as she does so.
[19:52:43] <Naida> "The nearest ones probably aren't going anywhere except as scrap m-." Naida grunts in surprise.
[19:54:21] * Oxford changes topic to 'Pool - Forest (Henriette) - Windmill (Naida, Lily) - Hill (10xCT-1s) - Ridge (2xCT-1s, 3xTTT/aa)'
[19:55:36] * Oxford changes topic to 'Pool - Forest (Henriette) - Windmill (Lily) - Hill (10xCT-1s) - Ridge (Naida, 2xCT-1s, 3xTTT/aa)'
[20:03:24] <Naida> While Lily drags the two of them forwards, Naida manages to spot a path along the shadows that connects all the way to the ridge, and in an instant Lily is left by herself. With little fanfare compared to her compatriots, Naida suddenly finds herself amongst the tanks and half-tracks. Wasting no time, a sickly looking cloud appears around Naida as she darts between the vehicles, attacking with bacterial claws, teeth, axes, scy
[20:03:24] <Naida> thes, and whatever sharp formations come to mind.
[20:10:30] <@Oxford> The thick armor of the tanks gives little purchase to Naida's claws, but the lighter half-tracks are like lambs at slaughter. Huge chunks of metal scatter as the bacterial cloud tears into guns, cabs, and wheels. One unfortunate crewman tries to bail at the wrong time, and is caught in the flurry of scything gas.
[20:29:04] <Henriette> Through the smoke, a flowing stream of hazy light settles down onto the ten tanks on the hill again. At first, nothing seems to happen, but then the metal starts to flake away, corroding and withering under the intense radiation. Two of the tanks begin to melt around the edges, and fires burst forth from their engines. The others look as if they'll fall apart in a stiff breeze.
[20:29:22] <Henriette> Henriette looks disappointed that her experiment didn't do more damage.
[20:32:06] <@Oxford> The crew of the two stricked tanks struggle to bail out through Lily's overgrowth. One crew manages to get the rear loader's hatch open and makes it out with some burns, but the other melts too quickly. No one emerges from the inferno. The other tanks are severly damaged, but are rotating their turrets to fire on the airborne attacker.
[20:32:35] <Lily_Blevins> Lily grimaces.
[20:33:22] <Naida> Naida is much too engaged in pointblank magic kung fu to pay any attention to melting people.
[20:46:36] <@Oxford> The eight remaining tanks fire high-explosive shells one after another, their cumbersome turrets rotating to follow her across the sky. Rounds explode one after another, but most fly wild and burst well away from Henriette. She dodges gracefully between two, and then looks up just as a third explodes less than a metre from her face. The blast slams her to the ground and drives the breath from her
[20:51:51] <Naida> Amidst her frenzy, several of the soldiers are able to muster the courage to initiate a counterattack on Naida. Though a few shots are able to slip through her defenses, the living suit manages to repel most of the bullet hail back towards their respective tanks.
[20:53:38] <Henriette> Irritated and bloodied, Henriette grimaces and stands back up. With an irritated huff, she forces air back into her lungs and takes to the air again, drops falling from the toes on her shoes.
[20:57:55] <@Oxford> The half-tracks take advantage of the counter-attack on Naida to regain control of the quadruple-mounted cannons, pumping round after round skyward. Lily sees them coming and dodges in time, but Naida is at point-blank, and has no time to react. She's tossed from one explosion to another as half a dozen shells burst all around her, scattering her bacteria and sending shrapnel deep into her leg.
[21:00:01] <Lily_Blevins> Lily concentrates, intensifying the sunlight.  A brilliant beam of light showers Naida, an after image of ambrosia left as a trick of the light as Naida's wounds mend themselves and her invigorated bacteria push the shrapnel out.  A weaker beam covers Henri, getting out various pieces as well.
[21:01:45] <@Oxford> As the living armor that surrounds her is torn away, it splatters over one of the half-tracks. The men below scream and claw at their skin as the biomatter eats into them like acid. They flee their gun, and a moment later the bacteria eats through the mounting, leaving it twisted like a wax statue left in an oven.
[21:13:38] <Henriette> The blood that had been oozing from Henriettes poors suddenly congeals into a bright, silvery liquid, shards of glimmering glass sparkling in her ambient light. They swirl around the tanks, a sandstorm of sharp glass. Suddenly, they seize inwards, burning hot, and lance through the tanks to form a tiny glass ball in the middle of them all, a white-hot star. Henriette's eyes literally
[21:13:38] <Henriette> smoulder with energy throughout her attack, and they remain a blank white after it's done.
[21:18:27] <@Oxford> Almost simultaneously, the ammunition stored in the tanks cooks off. They explode, sending jets of fire and burning metal shooting from every hatch and port. One of the tanks' turrets launches straight up, tumbling dramatically before crashing back down into the magical fruit trees. The force of the blasts shakes the trees, and apples rain down like a half-second of melon-sized hail.
[21:19:46] <Lily_Blevins> Lily's starting to tear up.
[21:23:53] * Firespitter ([email protected]) has joined #WorldWarBurst
[21:25:35] <Henriette> Henriette regards the wreckage coldly. She's not very good at precision, she decides. There are going to be more bodies before all is said and done.
[21:28:34] <@Oxford> The lone survivor of the inferno looks through his scope to see Henriette has her back to him. He takes a deep breath and squeezes off a round from the main turret of his tank. It flies high over her shoulder, ripping the tree to her left in half. Henriette doesn't even blink.
[21:33:24] * TemporalMech ([email protected]) has joined #WorldWarBurst
[21:35:24] <Naida> Naida pauses briefly to resume her ballad of bacterial death. Only this time, she cues the shadows in, striking unpredictably from all around the tanks as her battle fever crescendos.
[21:36:14] * TemporalMechanic ([email protected]) Quit (Ping timeout: 240 seconds)
[21:44:21] <@Oxford> The AA gunners struggle to track her as she flits from shadow to shadow. One of them swivels and fires at the same time, pumping shell after shell into his ally as Naida dodges between the two remaining half-tracks. It explodes, and as he stares into the blaze with horror, Naida springs onto the cab and slashes the soldier's own half-track to pieces.
[21:49:23] <@Oxford> The remaining two tanks on the ridge have watched their entire company disappear into a hellscape of burning fuel and twisted steel. They throw their tanks into reverse and pull back over the ridge, holding their fire in case they are pursued.
[21:51:00] <Lily_Blevins> "...let them go."
[21:51:07] <Lily_Blevins> Sniff.
[21:51:21] <Lily_Blevins> If those two tanks and the one remaining on the hill are leaving
[21:51:31] <Lily_Blevins> she dives onto the hill to see if she can find any survivors.
[21:52:26] <Henriette> "They'll make reports about us. We shouldn't let them go now that they've seen us. We aren't exactly subtle."
[21:52:58] <Lily_Blevins> "Wasn't the point of this to stop the war?  To stop the casualties?  Why are you doing this if not for that?"
[21:54:53] <Henriette> "What is it the Albaeans say, ma belle? Kill the snake by cutting off the head? We want them to agree to a ceasefire that Cimbria and Novgoraad find agreeable, et they will be even more guarded if we tell them we are coming. They will send other girls like us."
[21:55:13] <Lily_Blevins> "And we can convince them to stop like the Novs!"
[21:56:20] <Henriette> "And if they do not agree? Will you fight them? Ideals die hard, ma belle."
[21:56:47] <Lily_Blevins> "I'm not going to compromise my ideals!"
[21:57:03] <Lily_Blevins> "I'd rather die!"
[21:58:25] <Henriette> "And then you will be of little use to anyone." She wraps her arms around Lily, holding her close. "There will be more bloodshed. Steel yourself for that. I trust you. I always have."
[21:58:54] <Lily_Blevins> She tosses Henriette off her.  "I am not...I'm not a killer!  I NEVER joined this war to hurt anyone!"
[22:00:03] <Naida> Oblivious to the discussion of her comrades, Naida's bloodlust continues. The alien 'eyes' of her microbial mask glow with fury in the light of the burning tanks fixate on the retreating cowards. Without hesitation, Naida easily catches up through the shadows and lets forth a spray of asphyxiating spores.
[22:00:38] <Lily_Blevins> "And I-WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"  Lily uses Curse!  Naida is Bound!  "STOP!"
[22:00:47] <Henriette> "Et yet you cannot end a war without hurting someone! The factories we want to destroy? Those will have guards. They will not let us in easily! Et if we had left these ones alone? They would have advanced through the co- NAIDA!"
[22:02:00] <Lily_Blevins> A swath of ivy and brambles latches on to Naida's legs and drags her to the ground!
[22:32:10] <Henriette> Henriette raises an arm to the sky, power surging into it. A stream of light arcs into the sky, slipping through a tiny crack in the clouds. Suddenly, over Naida, that same light begins to grow, a spotlight that actually forces her downwards. The pressure increases until it feels like she's swimming far under the sea. It's actually incredibly hard to breathe. Finally, a shock of energy
[22:32:10] <Henriette> ripples through like lightning, locking muscles still. Sky train, motherfucker.
[22:35:05] <Naida> Naida's suit redirects its efforts to oppose the oppressive light, but it's clearly a losing battle. Vaporized magic spores are incinerated into ethereal wisps of smoke. By the end of the deluge, Naida still stands, but all bioluminescence is lost as Naida's movement ceases, leaving her figure left in place like a molted exoskeleton.
[22:38:51] <Henriette> "I'm sorry, Naida," Henriette mumbles.
[22:39:30] <Lily_Blevins> Lily rushes in, heading for Naida...and then a cluster of red flowers sprouts on her head.  She goes droopy-eyed, and then suddenly detransforms and falls straight down.
[22:45:30] <@Oxford> The flames covering the hill below engulf the magical forest. One by one, the hastily-grown trees crackle and splinter in the heat, toppling one after another, their bodies adding fuel to the fire. Henriette is the only thing left standing amid the choking black smoke.
[22:45:36] <@Oxford> /session